I love detective murder mysteries! I've loved them for years. I don't know when it started, this love affair, but it was many, many years ago. And a lot of books ago. Hundreds of them. I have read all of the Sherlock Holmes murder mysteries by Arthur Conan Doyle, all of the Nero Wolfe mysteries by Rex Stout, all of the Spenser mysteries by Robert B. Parker, all of the Agatha Christie mysteries with detectives Hercule Poirot, Miss Jane Marple, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, Parker Pyne and the enigmatic Harley Quin. All eighty-six of them. I have traveled through the Middle Ages with the Brother Cadfael mysteries by Ellis Peters, and the Knights Templar mysteries by Michael Jecks. Wandered through the Navajo Reservation with the mysteries of Tony Hillerman, and through post-World War I England with Scotland Yard's Detective Rutledge on cases written by Charles Todd. Oh, I almost forgot, the Elizabethan mysteries by Fiona Buckley about the court of Queen Elizabeth I and the Alex Cross mysteries by James Patterson. And many, many more.
There is an infinite and fascinating variety of characters in this genre. From a mustache-waxing Belgian Poirot to the Navajo Police Sgt. Chee. And from the cocaine using, violin playing eccentric who, almost single-handedly founded modern forensic detecting. But writing isn't just about rattling off the names of murder mystery writers or the names of their detectives. And I am writing this post because I have never really explored why I love this genre, why I have always had one of them on my nightstand by my bed, and why I have chosen to read these stories before I go to sleep each and every night. I am not sure I could even begin to guess why I have developed this habit over the last forty years.
My first memory of reading a detective mystery was The Tower Treasure, the first in the series of the Hardy Boy mysteries by Franklin W. Dixon. My father and mother bought me this book, and I read it sitting in the back of the black '48 Chevrolet in front of Kleins on the Square Department Store in New York City, knish in hand, and a bottle of Coke between my legs. I loved those books, and read every one that I could get my hands on. By the time that I grew out of them, there were only 12 in the series. Those twelve books sat on the bookcase at the back of my bed for years. When I was in college, we had a garage sale in our driveway, and a young lady bought the books for her young son. I never saw the books again. That is, until a few years ago. I was in The Bookworm, a used book store in Cranbury, NJ, when I saw the Hardy Boys' Mystery The Secret of Wildcat Swamp. Out of curiosity, I looked inside the book and found my handwriting in pencil. I bought that book and it is sitting on the bookshelf in my study and in front of me as I am writing this post.
I don't know what has attracted me to all of these murder mysteries for all of these years. Maybe it is the continued challenge to the logical part of my brain. Maybe it appeals to my sense of fairness and order in the world where the good guys don't always win in the end and the bad guys don't always loose. Or maybe my love affair with the adventures of Frank and Joe Hardy have extended over my lifetime. I don't really know. I can only guess. And that is good enough for me. For, before I go to sleep tonight, I will lie in bed with my two pillows propped under my head, and do what I have done every night for what has seems like forever. And tonight, like all those other nights, I will enter a world that I know so well, a world of dead bodies, clues, investigation and mystery. For the game is afoot.
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